Toyota to Test Plug-In Hybrid, Rivaling G.M.

Toyota Motor Company said Tuesday that it was testing hybrid vehicles with rechargeable batteries in the United States and Japan, setting up a direct challenge with General Motors to develop the industry’s first plug-in hybrids.
Toyota’s announcement is its first formal confirmation that it is ready to test plug-in hybrid vehicles, which environmentalists say may prove to be cleaner and more fuel-efficient than current hybrids.
In recent months, Toyota executives have said the company had plug-in hybrids under development, but would not give more details.
Toyota already is the world’s biggest producer of conventional hybrid-electric vehicles, which run off a gasoline motor and a battery. Indeed, for years, executives had played down the prospects for plug-in hybrids, saying consumers preferred the convenience of vehicles that did not need to be recharged.
It has sold more than 1 million hybrid vehicles worldwide, including 750,000 Prius cars, since the Prius went on sale in Japan in 1998. Prius became available in the United States, its largest market, in the year 2000.
Industry experts say plug-in hybrid vehicles, known as PHEVs, may provide a longer battery life and prove more environmentally friendly than current hybrids.
Toyota said it would provide prototype versions of plug-in hybrid vehicles to researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of California, Berkeley. It also said that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in Japan had approved the testing of plug-in hybrid vehicles on public roads in Japan.
Toyota is the only Japanese auto company thus far that has requested permission to test plug-in hybrids in Japan.
The prototype plug-in hybrids will be powered by two oversize packs of nickel-metal hydride batteries that are meant to simulate the kind of power Toyota expects future versions of the batteries to yield. The packs are capable of storing significantly more energy than the kind of battery found on the Prius, Toyota said.